To Soar

Flipping Over Gymnastics Is Not The Lesson Here

Once a week, for three years now, I have made a 25-mile drive-each way-to transport my daughter to an after-school gymnastics class. Many other commitments have fallen by the wayside over those three years. But (here`s a familiar pattern to mothers everywhere) I keep making time for my daughter`s gymnastics. Not, I should say, because my child possesses particular talent as a gymnast. (Just the opposite, in fact, as she would almost cheerfully admit.) Audrey is a good student and an extraordinarily nice person. But after three years of gymnastics class, she is just now able to execute the cartwheels some kids have been doing practically since they learned how to walk. And I do not take my daughter to gymnastics class because of any longtime allegiance I have to the sport.

I make this drive-in good weather and bad, year in, year out-as a challenge to destiny. My daughter may never be another Olga Korbut, but she`s not likely to feel, as I did growing up, that her body is simply incapable of doing what she wants it to do. She won`t be the star of her gym class, but she won`t be a gym-class joke either. What I hope is that she will grow up without the terrible fear and dread of sports that I inherited. And already that much is proving to be true.

Audrey skis with skill and enthusiasm. She dives fearlessly. She goes on long bike rides and works on gymnastics routines. Some parents delight in seeing parts of themselves reflected in their children. I delight even more in witnessing all the ways in which my children have remained free of my particular demons. The ways in which they`re not at all like me. And gymnastics class is one of the places where I see that most clearly. My goal for my daughter at gymnastics class is very simple. I want her to feel good about herself. She doesn`t have to be a star.

One of the trickiest things a parent has to work out for herself, of course, is where to draw the line between a healthy dose of interest and involvement in her child`s life, and total, self-sacrificing immersion. It`s natural, appropriate and even necessary, I think, for a parent to want more for her child than for herself. Of course, when you`re on a plane, your child gets the window seat. Of course, if there`s just one cookie left, it goes to him.

The danger lies when parents (mothers in particular) become so accustomed to the pattern that they bury their own needs altogether. Their needs don`t go away: They just get placed onto the person of one`s beloved child. Her triumphs (and her pain) become her mother`s. Even her cartwheels don`t entirely belong to her, but to the woman sitting on the bench watching. Which places on the child a heavy, heavy burden.

Every Tuesday afternoon I am one of those women on the bench at gymnastics. Mostly, when I sit there, I watch my son and daughter. But sometimes I catch myself studying the mothers (and the occasional father)

sitting there alongside me. Some of them seem offhand and casual. (The most casual of all, no doubt, being the ones who do not stay to watch at all. Or only for a few minutes.)

Some-and I hope I am one of these-seem able to take a healthy delight in their child`s performance, but, above all, in his or her simple joy on the trampoline, the balance beam, the uneven parallel bars. And then there are always one or two who sit poised on the edge of the bench, as tense as any pro-ball coach during a critical play-off game. From what they say, it appears that several of them used to be gymnasts themselves, though many are out of shape now that they have children to work on instead of themselves.

Often these mothers call out instructions to their children during class. ``Pay attention to the teacher!`` they say sharply. ``Just because it`s not your turn on the rings doesn`t mean you shouldn`t be watching. You can pick up tips watching the other kids.``

Do they actually believe that the most important thing for a 10-year-old to get out of a gymnastics class is the ability to do a back flip? Maybe her 10-year-old will learn that flip-sooner than my 10-year-old, very likely. If your mother`s approval hinges on gymnastics performance, you will perform, all right. No doubt about it. But at what cost? And what other sad lessons-about her relationship with her mother-will she learn along the way?

I think I would be troubled if my daughter didn`t try her best at what she chooses to tackle. But I also hope I never lose sight of what it is-more than this skill or that aptitude-that we are trying to foster when we ferry our children around to classes and activities.

My children will spend the rest of their lives having to earn respect, appreciation, affection, loyalty, in the outside world. I want them to know absolutely that with me, at least (and with their father) love doesn`t have to be earned with good report cards and blue ribbons. My daughter`s cartwheels are for her alone. They don`t belong to me, and neither, in the end, does she.